This Valentine's Day, why not choose to give your sweet one some fair trade deliciousness? Show some love for humanity while showing love for your loved one by supporting chocolate companies with a conscience.

I was discouraged when I first learned that much of the cocoa used in the chocolate industry is produced through child slave labor along the Ivory Coast in Africa. No more pound-plus Trader Joe's Belgian chocolate for me! The good news is that there are many companies working to source their chocolate responsibly while producing some serious chocolate yumminess. Here are a few brands I've discovered and sampled in the last year.

A Seattle-based company that uses cocoa beans from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Peru. Their chocolate is organic, fair trade, and GMO-free. I love the orange dark chocolate variety.

Chocolove

Colorado-based Chocolove makes distinctly flavored chocolate bars made with all-natural ingredients and the classic techniques of Europe's finest chocolatiers. The package design resembles a love letter sent from a distant land, and includes a classic romantic poem printed inside each wrapper making this bar a perfect choice for Valentine's Day. Chocolove makes three organic fair trade bars. For the remainder of their chocolate bars, Chocolove sources their chocolate from the Growing Great Chocolate cocoa beans in West Africa.

Divine is the only fairtrade chocolate company which is owned by its cocoa farmers. The farmers' coop (made up of cocoa farmers in Ghana) has a mission to empower farmers in their efforts to gain a dignified livelihood, to increase women's participation in all of Kuapa's activities, and to develop environmentally friendly cultivation of cocoa.

Equal Exchange is a democratic worker cooperative making organic and fair trade chocolate. They source their cocoa beans from over 40 small farmer organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.

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